UFO:Alien Invasion

General => Discussion => Topic started by: SgtDave on December 23, 2009, 08:05:53 am

Title: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: SgtDave on December 23, 2009, 08:05:53 am
Alright, I just played one campaign, and throughout it seems there are more female soldiers than male. Feminism, political correctness and all granted, sure, but are they on steroids in the future? Not only do they seem more numerous, but are likely to be as strong or stronger than men, despite (for instance) the US Center for Military Readiness stating that female soldiers are, on average, shorter and smaller than men, with 45-50% less upper body strength and 25-30% less aerobic capacity, which is essential for endurance, etc. Sure, there are exceptions... but what's up in UFO:AI?
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: Hertzila on December 23, 2009, 11:06:24 am
I'm guessing it's random. I have more males than females in my game.
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: SgtDave on December 23, 2009, 12:09:47 pm
I chalked it up to a straightforward random soldier generator, yeah. It would seem more realistic if either stats varied to reflect strength difference, or male volunteers outnumbered female volunteers to reflect you are getting the "more exceptional" female volunteers. However, I'll skip realism if instead I get more revealing armor for "Team Valkyrie"... ::)
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: poppadrake on January 23, 2010, 09:33:44 pm
Alright, I just played one campaign, and throughout it seems there are more female soldiers than male.
"Lucky Dog!!
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: QkiZ on January 24, 2010, 10:05:27 pm
I also noticed that trend. There are more available women soldiers than men.
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: poppadrake on January 25, 2010, 11:53:02 pm
Accurate strength stats would be a nice addition...but a touch hard to swing if gender assignation is random.  My troops seem to be split 60/40 male/female...but no female scientists or laborers.  Doesn't really matter to the game play though.  Would matter much more probably if the stats were accurate. Hmm.
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: Destructavator on January 26, 2010, 01:50:52 am
This seems to be contagious, whatever it is - I've been starting a lot of new games to test things lately and get a lot of female soldiers in the lists and less male soldiers.

I'm wondering if the seed for random picking needs to be adjusted or something.

Although I'm not an experienced coder compared to some others here, in my experience when I need to determine random numbers in C/C++ using just the rand() function I sometimes get the same results repeatedly, until I start "mixing" the seed with other program variables, which usually solves the problem.  By "mixing" I'm talking about adding, multiplying, etc. the seed number with several unrelated other variables that could be anything, even if they aren't related (such as exact "X" screen coordinate of the mouse cursor, for example...).

If I just base it off of elapsed time in seconds like some people do, I often get same, predictable results repeatedly, which can cause things like this.

Just a suggestion.
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: Duke on January 26, 2010, 02:55:09 am
The rand() implementation in Windoze is known to be not truely random.
But afaik it doesn't depend on the seed.
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: Destructavator on January 26, 2010, 03:20:40 am
But afaik it doesn't depend on the seed.

Then what is the seed for?  I'm not saying you're wrong, but in my personal studies and research on random numbers a seed should first be set before a random number is called, or set to NULL.

What am I missing here?
 ???
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: poppadrake on January 26, 2010, 11:34:43 pm
Realistically though, there are only two genders to choose from.  Won't the trend naturally swing back and forth?  The stats aren't dictated by gender so capabilities seem to be sufficiently random. And wouldn't connecting random number initialization to time be random enough?  Mouse cursor tends to begin from the same area because it generally remains in the same area...the Icon you start the game from...or maybe not.
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: Duke on January 27, 2010, 05:42:03 pm
I don't know the current implementation of MS rand(), as it's not OSS ;)
For large numbers eg. a million, the random distribution seems ok.
But it seems to produce unusual long *series*. That is, for small numbers, eg. 20 draws, you may end up with 16 females in a row, followed by 13 males. (I'm exaggerating a bit to make it clear).

Maybe someone wants to google for the latest findings about MS rand() ?
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: Bartleby on January 27, 2010, 06:00:34 pm
u could make it like this:
- all odd new persons are 75% male
- even persons are 75% female

so every 2nd person has a good chance to be not the same gender as the one before.
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: poppadrake on January 27, 2010, 06:54:37 pm
But unless gender effects the stats distribution, does it really matter?  Can we tie in a limiting parameter on gender? ie. if gender=male then strenth would be a random stat in a range 25% higher than if gender=female?  And if gender=female then sniping (or intelligence! ;D) would be random in a range 25% higher than male?  Then gender would matter, and Bartley's suggestion should work quite nicely to even out the gender trends.
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: Destructavator on January 27, 2010, 07:22:31 pm
Maybe someone wants to google for the latest findings about MS rand() ?

I've actually already done that, when I was learning (on Windows, MS) and what I've been describing is part of how it works, needing to set a seed first.  The MS system for random number generation is indeed awful, and can produce predictable results more often than it should.

Regardless, if a different implementation is used in this project anyways (which is what it sounds like), then the issue obviously isn't with the MS rand() function because we don't use it in this game.
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: Destructavator on January 27, 2010, 07:23:56 pm
Side Note:  What is a good way of getting random numbers anyways?  One that's cross-platform and not tied to MS?
I could really use something like that for another project...
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: Duke on January 30, 2010, 03:24:45 am
Do we also have that male/female distribution prob on linux ?
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: Destructavator on January 30, 2010, 04:48:43 pm
Do we also have that male/female distribution prob on linux ?

I can find out - my desktop computer had this issue with the game under Windows, and the same computer also has Xubuntu Linux installed.

I'll try to find time this weekend to grab an SVN copy under Linux on that machine and find out if it behaves the same or not.
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: EsbenMoseHansen on January 30, 2010, 05:04:12 pm
Side Note:  What is a good way of getting random numbers anyways?  One that's cross-platform and not tied to MS?
I could really use something like that for another project...

As with all things C++, boost is the answer: http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_41_0/libs/random/index.html That library will also be part of the C++ standard, offering 3 different random number generators depending on the quality you need, and will work on any platform you could possibly need.

Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: Destructavator on January 30, 2010, 05:11:08 pm
As with all things C++, boost is the answer: http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_41_0/libs/random/index.html That library will also be part of the C++ standard, offering 3 different random number generators depending on the quality you need, and will work on any platform you could possibly need.

Thanks!  This is exactly something I was looking for.
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: O01eg on January 31, 2010, 10:23:17 am
As with all things C++, boost is the answer: http://www.boost.org/doc/libs/1_41_0/libs/random/index.html That library will also be part of the C++ standard, offering 3 different random number generators depending on the quality you need, and will work on any platform you could possibly need.
Boost in C? It's terrible.
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: Destructavator on January 31, 2010, 03:13:30 pm
Boost in C? It's terrible.

Actually, the other project I would use such a library for is coded in C++, not C like UFO:AI.
(My fault, I didn't mention that.)
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: Valaska on February 11, 2010, 07:09:44 am
 That US Army study was Bull swear word, like most US army "research" such as on dragon scale, the XM8 etc, complete and utter crap from incompetent half wits. Take your info from the Marines, who actually value a soldier regardless of gender, women can ignore pain easier and have a higher tolerance for general combat fatigue.

 That and most the women in the military have been fighting their entire life so the average Joe Shmoe that joins up has to work up for a few years just to get up to their level. Ex military here, a female soldier is just as good as a male soldier, and don't give me this "Women should be weaker" bull. Its complete crap, maybe city girls or glam girls sure, but these are soldiers trained to the SAME standards as their male counterparts.
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: Kiashu on February 13, 2010, 01:34:36 pm
It is indeed unrealistic.

And realism is very important in a game about fighting an invasion of psychic aliens with lasers and plasma grenades and faster-than-light travel.

Or you could just, you know, play the damned game.
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: homunculus on March 22, 2010, 02:05:06 am
there has been some progress in medicine and switching gender is a lot easier, so you do not know which soldier was born male or female.
so it does not matter if male and female soldier stats should be the same or not.
how long have you lived without switching gender? boring, isn't it?
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: vedrit on March 22, 2010, 03:33:51 am
there has been some progress in medicine and switching gender is a lot easier, so you do not know which soldier was born male or female.
so it does not matter if male and female soldier stats should be the same or not.
how long have you lived without switching gender? boring, isn't it?

some people just cant make up thier minds.


But physiologically, men devlop muscle mass faster than women, among other things, thanks to the whole hormone thing (Testosterone vs Estrogen), so when someone says "Female soldiers should be the same as male soldiers! FLAME FLAME FLAME", I say "No. Science, current real science, says no. Go cry now.", and training to same standards does not mean that they will reach the same standards. Development differes on more than just gender.

Not sexist, just get tired of these kinds of arguments
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: Duke on March 23, 2010, 12:07:48 am
[KINDA OFFTOPIC]
By 2084, how much estrogene do you expect to be in our drinking water ? Maybe men will be reduced to the stats of females ?
[/KINDA OFFTOPIC]
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: Destructavator on March 23, 2010, 06:15:50 am
[KINDA OFFTOPIC]
By 2084, how much estrogene do you expect to be in our drinking water ? Maybe men will be reduced to the stats of females ?
[/KINDA OFFTOPIC]

Oh, you should see where I live, in a suburb just west of the city of Cleveland in the United States - We have all kinds of drugs and chemicals in our drinking water now, and it is causing problems, as we get it from Lake Erie right to the north.  (Yes, the large body of water that actually caught on fire once because of all the crap floating in it, a number of years back...)
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: SgtDave on March 24, 2010, 12:39:59 am
That US Army study was Bull swear word, like most US army "research" such as on dragon scale, the XM8 etc, complete and utter crap from incompetent half wits. Take your info from the Marines, who actually value a soldier regardless of gender, women can ignore pain easier and have a higher tolerance for general combat fatigue.

 That and most the women in the military have been fighting their entire life so the average Joe Shmoe that joins up has to work up for a few years just to get up to their level. Ex military here, a female soldier is just as good as a male soldier, and don't give me this "Women should be weaker" bull. Its complete crap, maybe city girls or glam girls sure, but these are soldiers trained to the SAME standards as their male counterparts.

1. The anabolic testosterone is a key factor in muscle development and bone density. While there is enough variety that on both ends of the spectrum, there is some overlap between males and females, on average men have ten times as much testosterone as women. Women are weaker on average. This is why sports events seperate by gender.

2. The myth about a higher pain threshold of women is based on observations of women during childbirth. However, it's now well known that during this time their body pumps out different chemicals. This increases their pain threshold during this time. From an abstract, "There was a significant decline in pain threshold after labor as compared to pain threshold during labor [...] Pain intensity using the VRS score was higher during labor than before labor [...] We found a significant rise in pain threshold during labor in term pregnancies." In fact, with the exception of pregnancy, it is men who have a slightly higher pain threshold.
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: homunculus on March 25, 2010, 05:00:45 am
so, if we wanted soldiers with higher pain threshold then we should recruit pregnant women.
i wonder where this discussion getting to. we need new models for female soldiers?
maybe the chemicals that increase pain threshold could be injected rather?
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: kodosapiens on March 25, 2010, 10:06:57 am
Do aliens in UFO:AI have females? Just curious.
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: Duke on March 25, 2010, 09:06:45 pm
Only female bloodspiders...
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: kodosapiens on March 27, 2010, 10:53:25 am
That reminds me of something. In all games like this, humans (the player) always have a variety of sprites, but only one sprite for one type of alien. Can alien sprites be varied? We can vary the darkness (the tamans came in every value of grayscale! yay!), hue, size, etc. So that the player can distinguish one alien from the other: "that dark one is wounded, the taller one is still fresh"

Or maybe every alien is genetically identical?

Or maybe sprite varieties is useless because we cannot see it clearly on the screen. If that is the case please ignore this post.
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: Borsti67 on March 27, 2010, 11:02:07 am
Interesting idea, in general I like the idea to have some variations.
On the other hand, may be from the aliens point of view all the humans are currently indistinguishable? ;D
Title: Females, and being PC
Post by: RCO on April 10, 2010, 08:33:21 am
Yeah that was something I noticed too. My teams seemed to be mostly females. IN order to fix that, I just hired Males only, crappy stats and all. But I thought of it as some reverse affirmative action in the future when perfectly abled Women need to make room for weaker men, in order to bring the ratio back to normal. Or i just hated seeing women at positions of authority, or i thought it just plain unrealistic. Whatever the case, I hired more men than women. Something else i'm wondering about is the lack of Black soldiers. and also African Names. I've seen Japanese, chinese, western european, Indian, arab and east european names. But wheres Mutembe Batombe????? Or Bafano Jonka????
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: Legendman3 on April 10, 2010, 08:42:28 am
RCO keep the race questions in that topic you made. And there need to be more males with good stats not just women it gets creepy for me
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: RCO on April 10, 2010, 08:45:19 am
haha sorry, you remember that one huh? not meant to be taken seriously i suppose. Although i still think being forced to hire cleaners for the base should be mandatory.
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: Legendman3 on April 10, 2010, 08:53:53 am
haha sorry, you remember that one huh? not meant to be taken seriously i suppose. Although i still think being forced to hire cleaners for the base should be mandatory.

That didnt make sense alot(it did not alot) because the second part sounded sexist what are "cleaners"? Are you refering to women? Thats sexist
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: Valaska on April 10, 2010, 09:51:39 am
1. The anabolic testosterone is a key factor in muscle development and bone density. While there is enough variety that on both ends of the spectrum, there is some overlap between males and females, on average men have ten times as much testosterone as women. Women are weaker on average. This is why sports events seperate by gender.

2. The myth about a higher pain threshold of women is based on observations of women during childbirth. However, it's now well known that during this time their body pumps out different chemicals. This increases their pain threshold during this time. From an abstract, "There was a significant decline in pain threshold after labor as compared to pain threshold during labor [...] Pain intensity using the VRS score was higher during labor than before labor [...] We found a significant rise in pain threshold during labor in term pregnancies." In fact, with the exception of pregnancy, it is men who have a slightly higher pain threshold.

 Sorry but go through basic training a long side women and try and come back with that crap again. Women can be just as strong as men, not everything is found in books look to the real world. And on pain threshold, yes women do have a higher pain threshold, the books actually back me up on this one as they have a huge amount of endorphins through virtually any situation when most mens bodies would go into shock and shut down.

 Sorry but I've gone through actual basic training in an actual army, you can come back after you've done 3 years service in an actual army. Meaning Marines or better.
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: Edi on April 12, 2010, 01:39:58 pm
Sorry but go through basic training a long side women and try and come back with that crap again. Women can be just as strong as men, not everything is found in books look to the real world. And on pain threshold, yes women do have a higher pain threshold, the books actually back me up on this one as they have a huge amount of endorphins through virtually any situation when most mens bodies would go into shock and shut down.

 Sorry but I've gone through actual basic training in an actual army, you can come back after you've done 3 years service in an actual army. Meaning Marines or better.
Oh wow, not this bullcrap. Here's a hint for you: The plural of a selectively biased anecdote is NOT data.

The statement that men are on average stronger than women is absolutely true. The statement that on average men are stronger than women soldiers is not necessarily true and yo would actually have to conduct a properly formulated study of that.
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: docwild on April 12, 2010, 04:53:55 pm
The extra endorphins make women more sensitive to pain, cold and shock in everyday situations.

There are some very good reasons why women aren't front line troops, at least in the UK. I'm not sure about US policy anymore.
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: DiDiT on April 12, 2010, 05:27:09 pm
women do make damn good medics and field doctors though... for a verity of reasons, right guys? :D


relax, I'm jokeing. but, no really, could we all quit with this 'who's better' crap?


Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: Legendman3 on April 12, 2010, 11:50:35 pm
is didit a girl? I agree with him
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: DiDiT on April 13, 2010, 11:26:56 am
legend, I'm preaty sure I'm a Dude!   ;D

*plays cheesy air-guitar rift*
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: BTAxis on April 13, 2010, 11:49:41 am
As a general rule, everyone on the internet is male until proven otherwise.
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: DiDiT on April 13, 2010, 05:46:34 pm
rule 30, no?  ;D
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: Destructavator on April 13, 2010, 09:17:20 pm
As a general rule, everyone on the internet is male until proven otherwise.

True, I've seen many cases - including in texts that aren't on the net as well - where "he" is assumed and understood to really mean "he or she" but is written out as "he" simply to make the text easier to read and avoid long, wordy sentences every time a person is referred to.  The same goes for "him" or "his" or any other similar terms.  The common exception though, is of course when the text is used in something geared toward women specifically (for example a website about nail polish and female beauty products, etc.)

Regarding the previous topic and related discussion in this thread, I see two different arguments:  One is how males and females compare in a military/soldier setting, the other is the general population.

I've seen numerous professional scientific studies that have proven that in the general population - people in all career fields - Men typically have more and stronger muscle mass while females have been proven to have better average manual dexterity, so in that case yes, they are different in their abilities.

Regarding in the military, when talking soldiers, I've never been in the military so I can't offer a solid perspective on that but I do know from my old job in law enforcement that I've seen plenty of women who work in that field who are just as strong, fast, and capable of performing the job as the men are.

So bottom line, I can agree with statements on both "sides" of the issue, but it really depends on which debate you're talking about - just soldiers/military, or the population as a whole.

As for the very original topic, in recent builds I've seen a typical mix of both genders equally now.  I don't recall any updates to the code addressing this really, but I'm no longer having too many of either for soldiers.
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: Legendman3 on April 13, 2010, 10:01:42 pm
rule 30, no?  ;D

That rule dosent apply to me.
Title: Re: UFO: Female Invasion?
Post by: DiDiT on April 13, 2010, 10:12:48 pm
right... legendMAN...   ::)

rule 30 apply to ALL of the internet! 4chan says so. *nods*